The Naked Truth

The room is dark. Men equipped with flashlights ease back into red velvet cushions awaiting naked flesh like promises. In another room, men sit in private booths and draw back sheer black curtains. Some call this the confessional. "Forgive me Father for I have sinned," says one of the girls as she begins her set. The next room will cost you an extra $10. Lined with tile, the stage is divided by a three foot plastic barrier, or 'cum guard', and a mote filled with water. An array of dildos line the stage and await her choosing. The show begins.

After five years as an erotic dancer, Denise is jobless again and finding it hard to find stable work. She's cleaning the house and trying to prepare for her mother's arrival this weekend. Between driving to San Jose three times a week and doing a show when she can, it's hard to get everything together.

Leaving Calistoga at 17, Denise moved to Florida and was married at 18. By age 20, she was on her own again. A small town girl with minimal technical skills, she found herself without means of financial support. But, she always had her looks. With enough money to move back to California, she hit The Big city.

San Francisco had a lot to offer, or so she hoped. She began to enter leg contests, bachelor parties, and then oil wrestling.

"They treated you like cattle in oil-wrestling," she says. "They'd auction you off to the highest bidder. 'Who wants to oil her down?' they'd say."

"I got my jaw displaced and a few ribs knocked out" while oil-wrestling, Denise says.

She was exactly what California Hard Bodies-the Petaluma-based travelling oil-wrestling show-was looking for. The beautiful, lean, blue-eyed, blonde look brought in the money, and she needed to pay the bills. She had been working at California Hard Bodies with erotic dancers from the O'Farrell Theatre and had heard how much they were bringing in on a regular basis. She had also heard that the place was safe and clean. In October of 1991, sick of being degraded by the industry and backed by her experience in ballet, Denise auditioned and began working at the theater.

From World War II, the era of free love, to the present, the lust for flesh has been a booming market. With dreams of competing with the large traditional movie studios, Artie and Jim Mitchell worked side by side until July of 1969, when the O'Farrell doors swung open for the first time. Known for fresh flesh and young bodies, they began pumping out high production skin flicks. Soon to follow were live erotic dancers and sex shows that would pull in the crowds and make the O'Farrell Theatre a $3.5 million business by 1991. This is a Disneyland for men, a sex smorgusbord for voyeurs and, for the women, a way to make a living.

However, trouble began brewing for the O'Farrell Theatre in 1991 when Jim shot his brother to death. This was followed by a class action lawsuit filed by dancers, Denise among them, against the theater in 1994.

The lawsuit alleges that the classification of the dancers as independent contractors is a legal means to make cash more quickly without the responsibility of wages, benefits or overtime. The suit estimates damages at approximately $5 million including "booking fees" the women had to pay for every shift they were to perform.

"The standard across the country," says Jeff Armstrong, a manager at the O'Farrell, "is that dancers are treated as independent contractors."

But according to Denise, dancers at the theater don't enjoy all the rights of independent contractors. "If we are independent contractors, then treat us like that," she says. "If we are employees, pay us."

According to the women filing suit, the theater is in control. The women must pay a fee to use the stage as if running their own businesses. But as far as the theater is concerned, management has the last word over how and when the shows take place. If the women cancel or come in late for a show, the theater takes note. If a show is not explicit enough, the women hear about it. They must report all of their tips and must show their annual tax records to management, which are then kept on file, the suit alleges.

An employee, according to present standards regarding the difference between independent contractor and employee classification, "must comply with instructions about when, where, and how to work. Even if no instructions are given, the control factor is present if the employer has the right to control how the work results are achieved."

Independent contractors are legally exempt from this control. They are responsible for how the job is done as well as filing their own social security and Medicare taxes, they pay unemployment taxes on wages, and provide any equipment required to do the job they have been signed to do. Labeling the dancers as independent contractors, say the suit's plaintiffs, relieves the theater of its obligation to pay wages or taxes for the dancers and also shelters the theater from legal obligation for the dancers actions, something the theater had a problem with in the era of police raids and stake outs.

At the O'Farrell Theatre, all of these things are true, but with final say about performances, schedules and the monitoring of how much the women make on a given day, the line between employee and independent contractors becomes blurred, the suit's lawyers say.

According to dancers in the case, the theater has indirect control over how much they are able to make on a given day. Management has control over the time slots the women are given to work, as well as which rooms they are allowed to perform in.

Each room in the O'Farrell has a different set of rules and standards the women must abide by, including rules that restrict tips, the only source of income provided to the dancers at the O'Farrell.

"If I am sick, why do I have to have a huge excuse?" asks Denise, a plaintiff in the action. "A little control I can understand. Some dancers are flaky and don't show up, so I can understand being a little strict in that area. But they keep tallies, check tax records...there are mikes in the dressing rooms, and cameras."

"I really liked working there," Denise says, "I've met really smart women there, college girls. Even though they are intelligent, they are really keeping their eyes closed to how they are being manipulated by the industry. If we are independent contractors then they need to treat us like it. If we are employees, then pay us."

According to the women in the case, management can be very intimidating and, since the case, the theater has become an uncomfortable place to discuss certain information.

"I think the reason they fired me the second time was because I wasn't keeping my mouth shut. I was informing the girls and customers about the case,"
Denise says.

Shortly after being fired from the O'Farrell for the second time, Denise entered another club and was approached by some women who knew she was involved in the suit. They where angry and upset at her presence there.

"Why don't you go somewhere where there's a pay check?" they asked. "Isn't that what you want? Why are you here?"

"Anywhere I would go into, I was always a very likable person. Then I go into this club and all the girls came up to me telling me I'm just making matters worse."

For a short period, a counter suit was filed against the class action by another group of dancers. Mitchell Brothers maintains that the counter suit was filed in an effort to save the dancers status as independent contractors.

According to court documents prepared by the plaintiffs in the class action suit, the evidence in the counter suit "clearly establishes that any such 'opposition' has been manufactured by defendants through a deliberate and pervasive campaign to coerce, manipulate and confuse class (action) members who are presently working at the theater into believing that lawsuit is an attack on their rights, and that they will suffer dire consequences if the case goes forward."

Dancers' jobs were threatened if they didn't sign the petition supporting the theater, Denise says, and those who brought the case against the theater were berated in front of everyone to show that the complaint would not be tolerated. For a while, there was a list (in the break room) of the dancer's names who had not yet signed the petition. These were the names of women who, according to the theater, where threatening the jobs and income of the supportive dancers.

"The girls want to leave well enough alone. They think that you can't change the system." Denise says. "They don't care about their rights, they just want to make money."

When asked if dancers were coerced into filing the counter suit, Jeff Armstrong, a manager at the O'Farrell Theatre, answers, "No. As far as I know, no one is coercing anybody over here."

According to Armstrong, the women who filed the counter suit did so because they liked the way the O'Farrell was doing business and didn't want to become regular employees like dancers at Century Theatre and Market Street Cinema, two other strip clubs in the city.

According to Denise, there is a lot of fear being stirred up by theater management about the case. Management makes sure that the women know how this lawsuit will affect their jobs and the kind of money they will be making if the other side wins.

"If someone farts it's because of the lawsuit," she says. "The girls are not informed."

Armstrong disagrees. He believes the dancers are being led on by sharking lawyers and greedy unions. "If they win there will be a large settlement, the bulk of which will go to the lawyers, and the girls will each wind up with $10-off coupons," he says. "It's like they said, 'I don't want to do this anymore-now give me $4.50 an hour in back wages.'"

After a few months of being jobless and in need of money, Denise wonders why she is doing this and jokes about how she should have never left Calistoga. "I'm not doing this because I'm greedy," she laughs, "If I was greedy, I would have stayed working. I'm suffering because nobody gives a shit." But, she says, "If we don't do something now it will never change. We want to make it better for other women."

According to the July issue of California Lawyer, lawsuits have been popping up all over the nation in an effort to clarify the difference between independent contractor and employee. Meanwhile, says Beth Ross, the women's lawyer in this case, the mistaken label of independent contractor continues to pull in an extra $2 million a year for the theater.

"Who knows when this case is going to really get moving," says Denise, who is not so optimistic about seeing any money from the case, but is trying to regain some control over her life and profession.

Denise doesn't believe that she and the others who no longer work at the O'Farrell Theatre were fired for being too old, too fat or too ugly, but because they are threatening the profits and the control over women by the industry.

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